TY - JOUR
T1 - The Transmission of Gun and Other Weapon-Involved Violence Within Social Networks
AU - Tracy, Melissa
AU - Braga, Anthony A.
AU - Papachristos, Andrew V.
N1 - Funding Information:
Author affiliations: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, New York (Melissa Tracy); Center for Law and Justice, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey (Anthony A. Braga); Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Anthony A. Braga); and Department of Sociology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (Andrew V. Papachristos). This work was supported in part by grant R21AA021909 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (M.T.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Fatal and nonfatal injuries resulting from gun violence remain a persistent problem in the United States. The available research suggests that gun violence diffuses among people and across places through social relationships. Understanding the relationship between gun violence within social networks and individual gun violence risk is critical in preventing the spread of gun violence within populations. This systematic review examines the existing scientific evidence on the transmission of gun and other weapon-related violence in household, intimate partner, peer, and co-offending networks. Our review identified 16 studies published between 1996 and 2015 that suggest that exposure to a victim or perpetrator of violence in one's interpersonal relationships and social networks increases the risk of individual victimization and perpetration. Formal network analyses find high concentrations of gun violence in small networks and that exposure to gun violence in one's networks is highly correlated with one's own probability of being a gunshot victim. Physical violence by parents and weapon use by intimate partners also increase risk for victimization and perpetration. Additional work is needed to better characterize the mechanisms through which network exposures increase individual risk for violence and to evaluate interventions aimed at disrupting the spread of gun and other weapon violence in high-risk social networks.
AB - Fatal and nonfatal injuries resulting from gun violence remain a persistent problem in the United States. The available research suggests that gun violence diffuses among people and across places through social relationships. Understanding the relationship between gun violence within social networks and individual gun violence risk is critical in preventing the spread of gun violence within populations. This systematic review examines the existing scientific evidence on the transmission of gun and other weapon-related violence in household, intimate partner, peer, and co-offending networks. Our review identified 16 studies published between 1996 and 2015 that suggest that exposure to a victim or perpetrator of violence in one's interpersonal relationships and social networks increases the risk of individual victimization and perpetration. Formal network analyses find high concentrations of gun violence in small networks and that exposure to gun violence in one's networks is highly correlated with one's own probability of being a gunshot victim. Physical violence by parents and weapon use by intimate partners also increase risk for victimization and perpetration. Additional work is needed to better characterize the mechanisms through which network exposures increase individual risk for violence and to evaluate interventions aimed at disrupting the spread of gun and other weapon violence in high-risk social networks.
KW - spouses
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U2 - 10.1093/epirev/mxv009
DO - 10.1093/epirev/mxv009
M3 - Review article
C2 - 26733492
AN - SCOPUS:84960111605
SN - 0193-936X
VL - 38
SP - 70
EP - 86
JO - Epidemiologic Reviews
JF - Epidemiologic Reviews
IS - 1
ER -